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15 best Cracker songs, from 'Teen Angst' to 'Turn On'

15 best Cracker songs, from 'Teen Angst' to 'Turn On'

With Cracker out touring with Camper Van Beethoven again, here's a playlist of their 15 best songs.

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2002

15. "Merry Christmas, Emily"

2002

15. "Merry Christmas, Emily"

First of all, those high-pitched harmonies are brilliant. Let's cut to the chase, though. I did not include this song because it's set in Tucson, with references to Sixth and Speedway, getting drunk at the Rusty Nail and Congress Street. It's here in part because ... did I mention those harmonies? Brilliant. But also because like any number of the greatest Christmas songs you'll ever hear, it's sad as hell. He's not with Emily, it turns out. Now now, anyway. "It's a Wonderful Life" is playing on the TV, which rhymes with "I think about you / Do you still think about me?" We never find out if she does, which has me thinking Emily has moved on with her life and he's doomed to wander through the streets of Tucson every Christmas, haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past.

1993

14. "Get Off This"

1993

14. "Get Off This"

This is Cracker at their funkiest, with a killer bass groove and a talk-box solo that's closer to Peter Frampton than Richie Sambora. You can hear actual words coming out of those pickups. Meanwhile, Lowery takes aim at a number of worthy targets with a wicked grin, mocking alternative culture in a first verse that has someone ask him, "Is it true that you have sold your soul?," to which he fires back "I say, 'Hey man, I don't know / Lend me a quarter, won't you? / I'll call my accountant." And that's before you even get to "Petty little Ayatollahs / Come around to judge and stone ya." This one peaked at No. 6 on Billboard's modern-rock charts.

1992

13. "Someday"

1992

13. "Someday"

This wistful country-rocker is blessed with some Robbie Robertson-style guitar from Johnny Hickman and an aching lead vocal from Lowery, who hangs one of the most infectious melodies he's ever written on a chorus of "Someday, well, I'll get it right / Yeah, one day, I'll get it right," the sense of optimism offset by the implication that that clearly hasn't happened yet. And Lowery's darkly comic, self-effacing sense of humor really wins the day on "And if you see the dark clouds gathering out on the horizon / Don't be alarmed, they're just there for me."

1993

12. "Movie Star"

1993

12. "Movie Star"

This song is all forward momentum, from the time they underscore that great ascending intro riff with one long snare roll. But this highlight of the second album really hits its stride when Lowery grabs the mike to set the scene with "Well the movie star / Well, she crashed her car / But everyone said she was beautiful even without her head." And the way he phrases, "But everyone said" just makes it that much better. This song has it all - great harmonies, a great rock and roll solo that suddenly kicks into overdrive when the drummer starts pounding the snare on every beat, and the following total Lowery moment: "Girl you're a beautiful animal / I'll put a tag on your ear."

1993

11. "Take Me Down to the Infirmary"

1993

11. "Take Me Down to the Infirmary"

This melancholy folk-rock ballad has just enough gospel in the mix, as the Rolling Stones would do it, to sell the pathos of a classic Lowery chorus: "I know the whiskey, it won't soothe my soul / And the morphine won't heal my heart / But if you take me down to the infirmary / I won't have to sleep or drink alone." And the soulful deliver of that Lowery vocal definitely helps.

2009

10. "Turn On Tune In Drop Out With Me"

2009

10. "Turn On Tune In Drop Out With Me"

This was the single from Cracker's latest album, "Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey." And it more than lives up to the promise of the title, the counter-cultural appropriation of a catch phrase first popularized in the '60s by TImothy Leary duly reinforced by the slacker-rock shrug of the mid-tempo music. "Come on, turn on, tune in drop out with me" are the first words out of Lowery's mouth, and as the song progresses we learn more about why he's urging a woman named Maggie to toss her law books and flee to his homemade agrarian fortress. Big Brother is watching and the whole thing's coming down. Best line: "So you're serving aperitifs to the local survivalist militia / In camouflage you're fine, but the locals still call you Morticia."

2006

9. "Everybody Gets One for Free"

2006

9. "Everybody Gets One for Free"

This is rock and roll as Bob Dylan not only imagined it but played it in his '60s prime, with scrappy guitar riffs and organ and a sense that this was learned as they were rolling tape. The lyrics follow Lowery down the stream of consciousness. In the opening verse, he's picking up a waitress. The next thing you know, Lowery's "started a conversation about the United Nations" while the waitress is talking about reincarnation - if, in part, because the words all rhyme (speaking of Dylan). And the final verse is quintessential Lowery: I was driving in my car / It was filled up with yams / For no obvious reason / That's just who I am."

1998

8."The World Is Mine"

1998

8."The World Is Mine"

This track swaggers with reckless abandon where most tracks have to choose, "Do I swagger or go for the reckless abandon?" The singalong chorus is Lowery at his most contagious, while the backing vocals go for psychedelic sighing like the Beatles in "Revolver" mode. It's more about the rocking than the lyrics this time out, especially when the drummer kicks it into overdrive on those last few breathless passes through the chorus hook. But the lyrics are nothing to sneeze at, either, setting the scene with "Well we went to the station / They were looking for Vegas / But I was stuck in my beat phase / Like it was 1959."

1996

7. "I Hate My Generation"

1996

7. "I Hate My Generation"

Remember when U2 covered "Helter Skelter" and Bono said, "This is a song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles. We're stealing it back?" Well, I do. And I only bring that up because this is sound Nirvana stole from the Pixies and Lowery was stealing it back to weigh in on his generation with "I hate my generation / I offer no apologies," going on to shred a vocal chord or two while shouting a mantra of "It's all right." The end result is a spot-on satire of alternative radio's steady diet, in the post-Nirvana '90s, of self-loathing anger or what Lowery called "Teen Angst" a few years earlier. And radio embraced it anyway. It peaked at No. 13 on the modern-rock charts.

1992

6. "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)"

1992

6. "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)"

Cracker exploded on impact with this single, a chart-topping smash on commercial-alternative radio that found Lowery sardonically sharing his thoughts on what the world needed now in 1992. It starts with a winking attack on his own ego ("I don't know what the world may need / But I'm sure as hell that is starts with me") before hanging that chart-rocking chorus hook on "What the world needs now is another folk singer like I need a hole in my head." He'd rather "a new Frank Sinatra so I can get you in bed." Fair enough. But the best line is the first half of his first pass through that chorus hook: "What the world needs now / Is a new kind of tension / 'Cause the old one just bores me to death."

1992

5. "Happy Birthday to Me"

1992

5. "Happy Birthday to Me"

Another highlight of Cracker's first album, this one doesn't rock with the forward momentum of "Teen Angst," working more of a Dylanesque folk-rock vibe right to the wheezing harmonica breaks. He's feeling thankful for the small things, enjoying a good sleep in his car in the parking lot of the Showboat Casino Hotel in the opening verse. And that's by way of setting up this classic Lowery vignette: "I say, 'I remember you / You drive like a PTA mother' / You brought me draft beer in a plastic cup." But the mostly endearingly Lowery-esque moment in probably, "Sometimes I wish I were Catholic / I don't know why." Of course. This single peaked at No. 13 on the modern-rock chart.

1992

4. "Dr. Bernice"

1992

4. "Dr. Bernice"

The final track on Cracker's triumphant first album, this gypsy waltz had to inspire a lot of talk among the Lowery faithful as to whether or not it was something he'd written for Camper and couldn't bring himself to let such a brilliant song sit on a shelf because they'd broken up. In the opening verse, he cautions, "Baby, don't you drive around with Dr. Bernice / She's not a lady doctor at all / She's got hands like a man with hair on the back / She'll crush you in her embrace." It's the sort of thing Ray Davies might have written. In fact, it's easy to picture it slotting right into the Kinks' "Muswell Hillbillies" album. And I do not say that lightly.

2002

3. "Shine"

2002

3. "Shine"

The vibe is like solo John Lennon revisiting Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" with Lowery promising "someday you're gonna sign." Whatever similarities there may have been to Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" are driven home - you might say in a Buick 6 - by the second verse: "You'll be a Russian acrobat / You'll be like Burt Bacharach / You come to the party, you say 'What's new pussycat?'" If I had never heard another line the man had ever written, I would be in Lowery's corner solely on the brilliance of that verse. For real. In fact, that line is so good, he spends most of the rest of the song just repeating the chorus hook and tossing in a solo break.

1993

2. "Euro-Trash Girl"

1993

2. "Euro-Trash Girl"

This bleary-eyed ballad has a vibe that had to give a lot of people flashbacks to the Velvet Underground's first album. There's even an angel in black. And some Swiss junkie in Turin who rips him off for cash. He's having a hell of a time in Europe. In Paris, he slept in the park. In Barcelona, someone broke into his car. In Amsterdam, he sold his plasma and blew through all the money in a single night, buying drinks at the Melk Weg for a soldier in drag. And it's all because, as Lowery tells us on the oft-repeated chorus, he'll "search the world over for my Euro-trash girl." Ahh, love. This one peaked at No. 25 on Billboard's modern-rock charts.

1993

1. "Low"

1993

1. "Low"

Look, I hate myself for putting Cracker's biggest hit at No. 1. But that's how undeniable this single is. That's why it crashed the Top 5 on the modern-rock charts and the mainstream-rock charts, Cracker's only song to do so. That opening riff is hypnotic as hell. Then, they pull back and let the acoustic guitars take center stage as Lowery sets the tone for what sounds, in that opening verse, like a standard romance: "Sometimes I wanna take you down / Sometimes I wanna get you low / Brush your hair back from your eyes / Take you down let the river flow." But after rocking its way through a singalong chorus hook that sounded right at home on those modern-rock stations in the post-Nirvana climate, the lyrics just keep getting darker, Lowery asking the girl who makes him feel like being stone, "Hey, don't you want to go down / like some junkie Cosmonaut?" The most endearing drug reference by far, though, is "A million poppies gonna make me sleep."

It's been 22 years since David Lowery emerged from what certainly felt like the ashes of Camper Van Beethoven to launch an even more successful second act as the wise-ass rock and roller at the helm of Cracker.

Their first self-titled effort wasn't nearly as eccentric as the singer's finest work with Camper. But its best songs more than made the most of Lowery's quirky cult of personality, topping the modern-rock radio charts with "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)." That first album has held up amazingly well, as have most Cracker albums.

With Lowery out touring with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven sharing the spotlight, it seemed as good a time as any to size up Lowery's Cracker years by counting down the best tracks they've released so far, from a handful of first-album highlights to the best song on their latest album, "Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey."

First of all, those high-pitched harmonies are brilliant. Let's cut to the chase, though. I did not include this song because it's set in Tucson, with references to Sixth and Speedway, getting drunk at the Rusty Nail and Congress Street. It's here in part because ... did I mention those harmonies? Brilliant. But also because like any number of the greatest Christmas songs you'll ever hear, it's sad as hell. He's not with Emily, it turns out. Now now, anyway. "It's a Wonderful Life" is playing on the TV, which rhymes with "I think about you / Do you still think about me?" We never find out if she does, which has me thinking Emily has moved on with her life and he's doomed to wander through the streets of Tucson every Christmas, haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past.

14. "Get Off This" (1993)

This is Cracker at their funkiest, with a killer bass groove and a talk-box solo that's closer to Peter Frampton than Richie Sambora. You can hear actual words coming out of those pickups. Meanwhile, Lowery takes aim at a number of worthy targets with a wicked grin, mocking alternative culture in a first verse that has someone ask him, "Is it true that you have sold your soul?," to which he fires back "I say, 'Hey man, I don't know / Lend me a quarter, won't you? / I'll call my accountant." And that's before you even get to "Petty little Ayatollahs / Come around to judge and stone ya." This one peaked at No. 6 on Billboard's modern-rock charts.

13. "Someday" (1992)

This wistful country-rocker is blessed with some Robbie Robertson-style guitar from Johnny Hickman and an aching lead vocal from Lowery, who hangs one of the most infectious melodies he's ever written on a chorus of "Someday, well, I'll get it right / Yeah, one day, I'll get it right," the sense of optimism offset by the implication that that clearly hasn't happened yet. And Lowery's darkly comic, self-effacing sense of humor really wins the day on "And if you see the dark clouds gathering out on the horizon / Don't be alarmed, they're just there for me."

12. "Movie Star" (1993)

This song is all forward momentum, from the time they underscore that great ascending intro riff with one long snare roll. But this highlight of the second album really hits its stride when Lowery grabs the mike to set the scene with "Well the movie star / Well, she crashed her car / But everyone said she was beautiful even without her head." And the way he phrases, "But everyone said" just makes it that much better. This song has it all — great harmonies, a great rock and roll solo that suddenly kicks into overdrive when the drummer starts pounding the snare on every beat, and the following total Lowery moment: "Girl you're a beautiful animal / I'll put a tag on your ear."

11. "Take Me Down to the Infirmary" (1993)

This melancholy folk-rock ballad has just enough gospel-as-the-Rolling-Stones-would-do-it in the mix to sell the pathos of a classic Lowery chorus: "I know the whiskey, it won't soothe my soul / And the morphine won't heal my heart / But if you take me down to the infirmary / I won't have to sleep or drink alone." And the soulful delivery of that Lowery vocal definitely helps.

10. "Turn On Tune In Drop Out With Me" (2009)

This was the single from Cracker's latest album, "Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey." And it more than lives up to the promise of the title, the counter-cultural appropriation of a catch phrase first popularized in the '60s by TImothy Leary duly reinforced by the slacker-rock shrug of the mid-tempo music. "Come on, turn on, tune in drop out with me" are the first words out of Lowery's mouth, and as the song progresses we learn more about why he's urging a woman named Maggie to toss her law books and flee to his homemade agrarian fortress. Big Brother is watching and the whole thing's coming down. Best line: "So you're serving aperitifs to the local survivalist militia / In camouflage you're fine, but the locals still call you Morticia."

9. "Everybody Gets One for Free" (2006)

This is rock and roll as Bob Dylan not only imagined it but played it in his '60s prime, with scrappy guitar riffs and organ and a sense that this was learned as they were rolling tape. The lyrics follow Lowery down the stream of consciousness. In the opening verse, he's picking up a waitress. The next thing you know, Lowery's "started a conversation about the United Nations" while the waitress is talking about reincarnation — if, in part, because the words all rhyme (speaking of Dylan). And the final verse is quintessential Lowery: "I was driving in my car / It was filled up with yams / For no obvious reason / That's just who I am."

8."The World Is Mine" (1998)

This track swaggers with reckless abandon where most tracks have to choose, "Do I swagger or go for the reckless abandon?" The singalong chorus is Lowery at his most contagious, while the backing vocals go for psychedelic sighing like the Beatles in "Revolver" mode. It's more about the rocking than the lyrics this time out, especially when the drummer kicks it into overdrive on those last few breathless passes through the chorus hook. But the lyrics are nothing to sneeze at, either, setting the scene with "Well we went to the station / They were looking for Vegas / But I was stuck in my beat phase / Like it was 1959."

7. "I Hate My Generation" (1996)

Remember when U2 covered "Helter Skelter" and Bono said, "This is a song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles. We're stealing it back?" Well, I do. And I only bring that up because this is the sound Nirvana stole from the Pixies and Lowery was stealing it back to weigh in on his generation with "I hate my generation / I offer no apologies," going on to shred a vocal chord or two while shouting a mantra of "It's all right." The end result is a spot-on satire of alternative radio's steady diet, in the post-Nirvana '90s, of self-loathing anger or what Lowery called "Teen Angst" a few years earlier. And radio embraced it anyway. It peaked at No. 13 on the modern-rock charts.

6. "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)" (1992)

Cracker exploded on impact with this single, a chart-topping smash on commercial-alternative radio that found Lowery sardonically sharing his thoughts on what the world needed now in 1992. It starts with a winking attack on his own ego ("I don't know what the world may need / But I'm sure as hell that is starts with me") before hanging that chart-rocking chorus hook on "What the world needs now is another folk singer like I need a hole in my head." He'd rather "a new Frank Sinatra so I can get you in bed." Fair enough. But the best line is the first half of his first pass through that chorus hook: "What the world needs now / Is a new kind of tension / 'Cause the old one just bores me to death."

5. "Happy Birthday to Me" (1992)

Another highlight of Cracker's first album, this one doesn't rock with the forward momentum of "Teen Angst," working more of a Dylanesque folk-rock vibe -- right down to the wheezing harmonica breaks. He's feeling thankful for the small things, enjoying a good sleep in his car in the parking lot of the Showboat Casino Hotel in the opening verse. And that's by way of setting up this classic Lowery vignette: "I say, 'I remember you / You drive like a PTA mother' / You brought me draft beer in a plastic cup." But the mostly endearingly Lowery-esque moment is probably, "Sometimes I wish I were Catholic / I don't know why." Of course. This single peaked at No. 13 on the modern-rock chart.

4. "Dr. Bernice" (1992)

The final track on Cracker's triumphant first album, this gypsy waltz had to inspire a lot of talk among the Lowery faithful as to whether or not it was something he'd written for Camper and couldn't bring himself to let such a brilliant song sit on a shelf because they'd broken up. In the opening verse, he cautions, "Baby, don't you drive around with Dr. Bernice / She's not a lady doctor at all / She's got hands like a man with hair on the back / She'll crush you in her embrace." It's the sort of thing Ray Davies might have written. In fact, it's easy to picture it slotting right into the Kinks' "Muswell Hillbillies" album. And I do not say that lightly.

3. "Shine" (2002)

The vibe is like solo John Lennon revisiting Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" with Lowery promising "Someday you're gonna shine." Whatever similarities there may have been to Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" are driven home — you might say in a Buick 6 — by the second verse: "You'll be a Russian acrobat / You'll be like Burt Bacharach / You come to the party, you say 'What's new pussycat?'" If I had never heard another line the man had ever written, I would be in Lowery's corner solely on the brilliance of that verse. For real. In fact, that line is so good, he spends most of the rest of the song just repeating the chorus hook with Hickman tossing in an excellent guitar break.

2. "Euro-Trash Girl" (1993)

This bleary-eyed ballad has a vibe that had to give a lot of people flashbacks to the Velvet Underground's first album. There's even an angel in black. And some Swiss junkie in Turin who rips him off for cash. He's having a hell of a time in Europe. And not in a good way. In Paris, he slept in the park. In Barcelona, someone broke into his car. In Amsterdam, he sold his plasma and blew through all the money in a single night, buying drinks at the Melk Weg for a soldier in drag. And it's all because, as Lowery tells us on the oft-repeated chorus, he'll "search the world over for my Euro-trash girl." Ahh, love. This one peaked at No. 25 on Billboard's modern-rock charts.

1. "Low" (1993)

Look, I hate myself for putting Cracker's biggest hit at No. 1. But that's how undeniable this single is. That's why it crashed the Top 5 on the modern-rock charts and the mainstream-rock charts, Cracker's only song to do so. That opening riff is hypnotic as hell. Then, they pull back and let the acoustic guitars take center stage as Lowery sets the tone for what sounds, in that opening verse, like a standard romance: "Sometimes I wanna take you down / Sometimes I wanna get you low / Brush your hair back from your eyes / Take you down let the river flow." But after rocking its way through a singalong chorus hook that sounded right at home on those modern-rock stations in the post-Nirvana climate, the lyrics just keep getting darker, Lowery asking the girl who makes him feel like being stoned, "Hey, don't you want to go down / like some junkie Cosmonaut?" The most endearing drug reference by far, though, is "A million poppies gonna make me sleep."